As promised on Wednesday, Andrew Robins, who has has done some book reviews for me here in the past, is going to share his log for a recent, short run role-playing game here on the blog.

The actual log will start tomorrow, but for now, here’s Andrew to tell you what it’s all about.

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Introducing 58 Eridani

58 Eridani was run as a “free-form” role playing game.

Free form role playing games are played without a pre-defined set of rules. The players and the games master make up the rules as they go. This style of play emphasizes story telling and is my favourite way to run a game.

Each player was allowed to create one in game player character  and no real restrictions were placed on this process. People were free to create the character they wanted, and it was my job as games master to adapt the story to match whatever they came up with.

Predictably the players created an eclectic mix of characters, whom I introduce below:

Glandin Frutnok van Glomzimmer the 3rd: Imperious and rash, but a brilliant medical mind. Owns an enormous train set that he never has time to play with.

Amelia Delaware: Hot pilot and expert ship handler. Owner of a highly illegal and probably very dangerous hand-held rift gun that she has been smart enough to never fire.

Buffy Chinks: Bio hacker and cyberneticist. A fan of obscure 20th century cultural memes that she is convinced will one day be cool again

Bob Stark: One of the most highly trained ex-quartermasters you will ever meet. Really keen on laundry and making sure things get put back in just the right place. Has been known to use small arms to make sure the right space is still available, when required.

In keeping with the spirit of a free-form game, I started this campaign with an overall story arc in mind, but the detail of exactly how all of the different story elements would ultimately fit together was a work in progress. In the end I think the characters and I managed to tell a compelling and entertaining story.  And I guess that Helen agrees, otherwise it wouldn’t be appearing on her blog.

I got the basic idea while I was playing in my friend Joffre Horlors “Galik Prime” Traveller campaign. In the spirit of full disclosure though, I need to acknowledge some additional influences. Obviously Traveller, and the cultural lexicon that goes with that game were an important part of my initial world building, and I freely adapted and reused some ideas from Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth saga.

I am also going to acknowledge Ursula K Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness” as well. The influences are subtle, relating more to characterisation and the motivation of some of the personalities that were created during the course of telling the story, rather than the initial world building. But they are there if you look for them.

I didn’t spot them myself until about three-quarters of the way through the game when I suddenly realised what sort of story I was telling.

So, it all kicks off tomorrow. I hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoyed playing it

–  Andrew Robins

Click to read Eridani 58, Episode 1

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Andrew Robins is a long time reader – and sometime reviewer – of science fiction, fantasy and history. People pay him to test stuff, which most of the time is more fun than it has any right to be.

To check out Andrew’s book reviews, see “Book Reviews for ‘on Anything, Really’” in the right-hand side bar.